Granada's TV Rental Stuff

[London Lite]

On the Granada TV Rental front - for most of the time the sets they rented were branded Finlandia

One set we had Granada Colour on the bottom left of the set, with Finlandia and the Granada logo on the top right hand corner flap where the tuner was.

[Spencer]

As well as Granada TV rentals, I also remember our local high street had a Rediffusion TV rental shop in the early to mid 80s. It had the same Adastral logo as Associated Rediffusion, so I’m assuming there was a connection.

[reworP wehttaM]

I remember the Granada sets having the logo and font used by the television channel until I think the late 80s when they used a different font.

Mid-80's actually, if I recall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQB3HYpSHuI

I'm guessing they changed the logo so they can camouflage themselves more, since by that point most of the UK associated the arrowed G with the ITV service

[Markymark]

My memory of their 1970s advertising of the TV rental arm, was it openly pointed out it was the same Granada that was an ITV company. Words to the effect, 'we do everything from programmes to supplying your TV set....'

[Humphrey Hacker]

We used Radio Rentals in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I always felt a frisson of excitement seeing what the latest technology was.

During the miners strike of 1984/85 RR refused to take any money from us because they knew it would leave us worse then we were already. They did that with every mining family in the area. That’s something I’ve never forgotten and I never will.

I didn’t know that. Certainly something you’d never see today (even if there were any miners left to strike).

I don’t know whether it was nationwide but in the part of Yorkshire I come from it was common.

[reworP wehttaM]

Branding wise the Granada rental chain had a different logo to the broadcaster as did the motorway service stations but I do remember the day when I joined up all the dots as a kid with ridiculous excitement that only a PresHead would gave.

Funny thing: the motorways used to have that arrowed G too

[Steve in Pudsey]

I believe I read somewhere that when Quay Street was being designed there was still some pessimism about whether TV would be a success, so Bernstein had the building designed such that the office block could be easily converted into a hotel.

[thegeek]

20-odd years later, I've still not quite got my head around the merger/demerger that took place, but in 2000 Granada merged with the caterer Compass Group, did a big reorganisation, then demerged again minus all of the hospitality bits. (Compass sold off the service station chain, then named Moto, a few years later.)

I'd mostly forgotten about the rental side of things until the other day when I was reading in Private Eye about how ITV plc are apparently avoiding their responsibilities to the Box Clever pension scheme, which they're responsible for.

[Inspector Sands]

I believe I read somewhere that when Quay Street was being designed there was still some pessimism about whether TV would be a success, so Bernstein had the building designed such that the office block could be easily converted into a hotel.

The LWT building on the South Bank was designed in a similar way so that it wasn't a massive white elephant should they not have their franchise renewed a few years later. The tower block and studio block were seperate so one could be redeveloped without the other. 

Not that this was utilised 50 years later....

[Humphrey Hacker]

We used RR until the mid 1990’s when we bought our first package from Curry’s. It was a 21inch Philips TV and VCR.

[Inspector Sands]

It only had 4 push-button channels on it though, which meant when Channel 4 came along, we had to watch that through the video.

My grandad had a Baird TV with only 4 preset buttons, I think we tuned it into Channel 4 for him but I doubt he ever watched it and never had a video. 

Very unusual and not very useful in the 80s. But mind you the next step was putting too many presets, I remember seeing sets in the 90s and 2000s still boasting '100 channel memory' when there's no way in the UK that they would ever be used even if connected to cable

[Humphrey Hacker]

It only had 4 push-button channels on it though, which meant when Channel 4 came along, we had to watch that through the video.

My grandad had a Baird TV with only 4 preset buttons, I think we tuned it into Channel 4 for him but I doubt he ever watched it and never had a video. 

Very unusual and not very useful in the 80s. But mind you the next step was putting too many presets, I remember seeing sets in the 90s and 2000s still boasting '100 channel memory' when there's no way in the UK that they would ever be used even if connected to cable

Baird? That’s going back a bit. It was either Baird or Ferguson in our house.

[Markymark]

It only had 4 push-button channels on it though, which meant when Channel 4 came along, we had to watch that through the video.

My grandad had a Baird TV with only 4 preset buttons, I think we tuned it into Channel 4 for him but I doubt he ever watched it and never had a video. 

Very unusual and not very useful in the 80s. But mind you the next step was putting too many presets, I remember seeing sets in the 90s and 2000s still boasting '100 channel memory' when there's no way in the UK that they would ever be used even if connected to cable

Baird? That’s going back a bit. It was either Baird or Ferguson in our house.

One of my school friends had a Baird branded telly. Ultrasonic remote control to change channel. He used to jangle his keys when he left the room while his mum watched the telly, and make it change channel. Sometimes she didn't notice !

[Omnipresent]

We didn’t rent our TV equipment, but I remember our first top loading Ferguson video recorder - my Dad was a steelworker and in the 1980s was insistent on buying British manufactured home electronics and appliances - regularly had to be sent back to Comet for repairs.

[Neil Jones]

It only had 4 push-button channels on it though, which meant when Channel 4 came along, we had to watch that through the video.

My grandad had a Baird TV with only 4 preset buttons, I think we tuned it into Channel 4 for him but I doubt he ever watched it and never had a video. 

Very unusual and not very useful in the 80s. But mind you the next step was putting too many presets, I remember seeing sets in the 90s and 2000s still boasting '100 channel memory' when there's no way in the UK that they would ever be used even if connected to cable

But there was various other things that outputted in a way that a TV saw as another channel. Such as old school games consoles and VCRs. The TV just saw them as another broadcast channel, and VCRs were by default usually on UHF Channel 37, which was where Channel 5 launched (for the most part) and the whole returning thing they had to do to launch.

But even then most people only needed no more than about seven at the most, and once VCRs adopted SCART connections they didn't need a UHF output at all for that, and by that point consoles were beginning to use other outputs like S-Video and HDMI.